Publication Date: 3/24/2006
Daily Nation, Nairobi, Kenya

Although food security is about patterns of weather, political turmoil has disrupted Africa's agrarian economies, writes Peter Kimani, who recently toured Kenya’s North Eastern Province, the epicentre of the famine that has hit the Horn of Africa

An agreement this week in Nairobi by the seven countries of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) to establish a regional emergency fund involving the private sector to fight famine in the Horn of Africa is historic.

The decision is significant in that it represents the first time the countries are involving the private sector on a regional scale to fight famine.

It also signifies a turning point for Igad: a realisation that Africa cannot attain food security without tackling the root causes of famine — political turmoil, civil strife and war that have made a continent that was an exporter of food 50 years ago unable to feed itself.

Observers see another agreement also reached this week to deploy security forces to Somalia to help the transitional government secure peace, as well as ongoing peace initiatives in Darfur, as efforts that will ultimately help the region to resolve its food crises.

Uplifting as this may be, Igad, which was set up primarily to fight drought and desertification before its mandate was expanded, is setting up the emergency fund on its 20th anniversary, two decades late.

The seven Igad members — Kenya, the new chair, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti — will need to prove that the political will they displayed at their Nairobi summit will outlast the famine currently ravaging the region. That has to begin with action on the ground.

In the sun-drenched plains of Elwak, some 250 kilometres south of Mandera in Kenya's North Eastern Province, swirls of dust reveal that the rains that had been pounding Nairobi and its environs did not spread out to the province, now going through a third consecutive year of drought.

Distressing media images

The results have been disastrous: the pastoral communities dependent on rain for water and pasture are literally staring death in the face. A dozen people had perished by December 2005, when the Kenyan government — embarrassed by the distressing media images showing the starving masses — responded by dispatching tonnes of grains and gallons of water to those who needed it.

Even fodder was transported to save the animals, in a campaign that galvanised the general population to raise funds for their starving compatriots.

But the process has been excruciatingly slow, partly due to infrastructural limitations and bureaucratic bottlenecks that are choking life-saving operations, while eating away huge amounts of money.

A recent visit to parts of Mandera district revealed that things are going from bad to worse, judging from the growing numbers of hungry people. "There are new arrivals every hour," said Mohamed Abdi Noor, the Red Cross Chairman in Mandera district. "As it is, things are very bad."

The "new arrivals" refer to herdsmen who had been trekking through the wilderness in search of water and pasture, and having lost their animals, are pitching tent in settlements near towns.

Noor says food distribution has only covered 57 per cent of the NEP populationat 75 per cent food rations.

The number of animals that have succumbed to the drought have risen to 90 per cent, says Elwak district officer Patrick Choge, a situation that could take up to 15 years to reverse, according to British aid agency, Oxfam. The humanitarian intervention in NEP is increasingly turning to be a case of too little, too late.

With over 70 million people facing chronic hunger and poverty, the Horn of Africa region is one of the most vulnerable in the world. In the most immediate future, however, Oxfam says at least 11.5 million people need food aid.

But the region's current severe food shortage is not just about patterns of weather: food security is essentially a political question. Civil strife, for instance, has engulfed Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Uganda, disrupting agricultural production — the mainstay of the region's economy.

The situation is replicated elsewhere, with the Food and Agricultural Organisation citing only 12 of the 27 countries facing acute food shortages in sub-Saharan Africa to be as a result of drought, compared to the 15 countries whose woes stem from political turmoil.

The continent has suffered from 186 coups and 26 major wars in the past 50 years, displacing 16 million refugees.

But what remains unpalatable is how a continent that exported enormous quantities of food at independence, now cannot feed its people.

A study of Kenya's growing food insecurity illuminates the broader crisis within the continent. Although post-independent Kenya has not been at war, its over-tilled lands have grown less productive, while shrinking in size to accommodate its rapidly growing population, currently standing at 33 million from the 3.5 million at independence in 1963.

Under-investment in rural areas is another factor that applies to the regions presently facing famine. North Eastern Province is considered "the forgotten frontier," and its inferior infrastructure attests to decades of political neglect.

Battle for Somalia

Said Barre’s ambition of creating what he called the "Greater Somalia," incorporating parts of the NEP, was halted by Kenya's superior force in the Shifta war.

The more bruising battle for the "Greater Somalia" was waged over the Ogaden region in Ethiopia. Margery Perham explains in her book, Thinking Aloud About Africa, that three of the five white stars on the Somali flag point towards Ogaden, Kenya's Northern Frontier District and Djibouti, representing the Somali terra irredenta.

"Poor governance is a major issue in many African countries, and one that has serious repercussions for long-term food security," says a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute. 

"Problems such as corruption, collusion and nepotism can significantly inhibit the capacity of governments to promote development efforts."

The multiplicity of social, cultural and political issues that have impacted on Kenya's food production also come into play in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Djibouti.

Even before things fell apart in Somalia in 1991, when Siad Barre was hounded out of power, the country’s economic potential had remained largely unexplored. But its strategic location attracted Americans' dollars to counter the Soviet Union. 

At the height of the Cold War, Somalia was the largest recipient of American military and economic aid, after Israel and Egypt, with a package that averaged $100 million a year.

Barre sunk most of the money in Mogadishu, the seaside city that has since been reduced to rubble by warring factions, while pursuing a destructive campaign with Ethiopia over Ogaden.

Similarly, Barre's development agenda was motivated by clan affiliation, generating the implosion that found vent after Barre's exit.

Somalia is yet to be weaned off the addictive food aid, and most of its citizens are scattered in refugee camps in the region. Currently, an estimated 1.7 million people in northern, central, and southern Somalia are facing acute food shortages, a number that's expected to rise by the end of the year. Combined with up to 400,000 internally displaced persons, roughly 2.2 million Somalis are facing starvation.

Famine is a recurrent problem in Ethiopia and the world's hope that the 1984 tragedy, in which 1 million people starved, would not be repeated, has been breached many times over. Even in good years, some 5 million Ethiopians need food aid, which does not make sense for a country that has good soils compared to its neighbours.

Dispute with Eritrea

The problem with Ethiopia food insecurity is partly traced to its long and protracted border dispute with Eritrea, in which hundreds of millions of dollars have been blown away.

The situation is not any different in Eritrea, as it is drowning under debts accumulated in its campaign against Ethiopia, at the expense of pressing developmental issues.

Similarly, in Sudan the farms are dangerous grounds ridden with landmines, and the insecurity in Darfur is threatening to jeopardise the newly-born Southern Sudan state.

But if the rains fail in Sudan, the country's substantial oil reserves should form a stable revenue base to help feed its people and develop its infrastructure.

And that's the ultimate test of its political maturity after years of social conflagration that’s the root cause of Sudan’s past and present food insecurity.